Jacob Hall

After a neck-and-neck race last weekend, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has officially stepped aside to let Hidden Figures reign supreme. The crowd-pleasing drama about the black female mathematicians who assisted NASA in its early days topped the box office, leading a weekend that was otherwise all a…

Eventually, some movie will unseat Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from its spot at the top of the box office charts. That movie will not be Hidden Figures, but man, it sure came close. Unless the final numbers shift ever-so-slightly, the drama about the African American women behind the math that help…

Consider this the calm before the storm. Next weekend, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story will open and dominate both the box office and every headline, drowning out each and every other movie currently screening in theaters. In the meantime, Moana took advantage of this quiet window to win one more stron…

Don’t let that headline mislead you too much. Tom Cruise is fine. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back also did fine in its opening weekend. But there’s something inherently amusing about one the most recognizable movie stars in the world playing second fiddle to Tyler Perry and his ever-popula…

The trend of more adult-oriented films commanding the box office continued this week with the success of The Accountant, which effortlessly snagged the number one spot. But like The Girl on the Train and The Magnificent Seven before it, Ben Affleck’s latest was strong without being enormous, …

Six months ago, this looked like a very different weekend at the box office. While the strong start for The Girl on the Train isn’t surprising, the weak opening for The Birth of a Nation reflects how the film, once seen as a surefire Oscar-contender, has been affected by a series of real worl…

Despite new challengers of all genres, budgets and backgrounds, Sully remained number one at the box office this week, fending off the likes of Blair Witch, Bridget Jones’s Baby, and Snowden. In a month not traditionally known for producing many financial juggernauts, Clint Eastwood’s …

There are two big stories to lead with in this edition of the Weekend Box Office Report and both of them are equally interesting in their own little ways. Let’s start with the positive: Sausage Party now inexplicably holds the record for biggest opening for an animated movie released in Augus…

A little movie called Captain America: Civl War came out this weekend and made the exact kind of money you’d expect it to make. The thirteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe didn’t have the biggest opening in the series’ history, but it was close enough. It’s easil…

Naked & Afraid is an actual reality show that just began its fifth season on the Discovery Channel, but it sounds so much like something that was cooked up in the SNL writers’ room that you can be forgiven for thinking it’s entirely a gag. The premise is patently ridiculous: two st…

It’s one of the most contentious arguments in all of fandom. In the original Star Wars, did Han Solo casually execute the bounty hunter Greedo or did he only return fire in self defense? In 1977, it was definitely the former. In the remastered “special editions,&CloseCurlyDoubl…

Around this time last year, SNL presented a commercial parody centering around Totino’s Pizza Rolls, just in time for the Super Bowl. And it was a nasty piece of business, tearing apart the image of the NFL’s biggest game as a day for men and imprisoning Vanessa Bayer’s indefati…